Empty Room
by JoyfulMariska
Summary: A collection of scenes we didn't see in the Save Benson Saga - "Surrender Benson," "Psycho/Therapist," "Beast's Obsession," and "Post-Mortem Blues."
1. Chapter 1

Nick answered his phone as he and Fin drove back toward the precinct from the barricades to and from Long Island. They were no closer to finding Olivia, further discouraged by the fact that she had been missing for over four days.

He reached into the center console to answer the number he didn't recognize. "Detective Amaro."

The exhaustion taking over his body was so intense he could hardly find the energy to speak. Every emotion he was previously capable of feeling had long been abandoned. Now he was as numb as he possibly could be, wishing to remain that way. It was easier not to feel.

However, when he heard the voice of the woman on the other end of the call, those feelings returned all at once.

"Nick. Nick I need backup at 598 Hollow Road, Sound Beach. He's down."

It was Olivia - what was left of her. The voice was somehow familiar, yet almost unrecognizable. Even so, he knew who it was immediately.

"Liv! Olivia, are you ok?" He need to know that she wasn't calling as she sat mortally wounded.

"Send paramedics in first. He's down." She didn't answer his question.

"We're on our way, Liv. Hold on. Just stay on the line with me, ok."

He gripped the phone until his knuckles were white.

Nick was discouraged and still relieved by the silence on the other end. It meant she really was alone. Lewis wasn't luring them into a trap. Olivia held the phone, her steady breathing audible only every once and a while. She said nothing, and he didn't push her to. His foot pressed on the gas, taking the car swiftly toward the closest interstate exit to turn around.

Fin held the handle above him as he looked over. He kept his voice low. "It's Liv?!" The feelings surged back into his throat as his heart began to pound violently against his chest.

Nick took the exit and then hopped back on the interstate, headed back to the island.

"Yeah. Says Lewis is down. Call for backup. Get SWAT to standby. We need paramedics." Nick nodded, fear morphing to quiet anger and desperation in his voice.

Fin didn't question him, plucking the speaker device from the dash.

"Detective Odafin Tutuola, Manhattan SVU requesting backup at 589 Hollow Road, Sound Beach, Long Island. SWAT and EMS requested." He held the speaker as he waited for a response.

Nick didn't have to look at his speedometer to know he was going way over the speed limit. He had to get to his partner. He had to know she was ok.

_"Copy. Backup's on the way."_

* * *

Olivia heard the car's tires over the rocks as she sat on the floor, her back against the wall. Lewis was in front of her, uncuffed after she'd gotten him free, beaten to a pulp. He was out cold, and Olivia did nothing but look at him blankly. She couldn't do anything else.

She let her head rest against the wall as she tried to fight off unconsciousness. It was a never-ending struggle she'd battled in for four days. Her head pounded, stinging and aching at the same time, mimicking exactly what every nerve in her body did. Deep pain echoed within her bones, the very frame of her being. Even deeper pain reverberated in the very depth of her mind, her thoughts, her emotions.

Even if she had the mental drive to stand, she was unsure her legs would hold her. Her arms felt like they were aflame as the burns and cuts, glowing bright red, tried to heal themselves. The bones in her wrist sent shooting pains up her arm and down every finger of her left hand, no doubt shattered. The pain in her ribs alerted her to a more serious injury. With the difficulty she felt taking deep breaths, she knew also that her ribs had been josteled too hard. All of her body had been.

Her eyes remained closed as the heard the door of the house open.

* * *

Nick pulled into the vacant driveway with anxiety that threatened to eat him alive. Fin felt exactly the same as they both stared at the desolate structure nestled alone ashore the overcast bay.

"I'm going to go in." Nick turned the car off and then stepped out where a steady rain had begun to come down.

He touched his gun absentmindedly, silently picturing what he might find within the isolated home. Every image he pictured frightened him a bit more. Fin could hardly stand up as he held the car door to support his weight upon his legs as he swayed on his feet.

The two vehicles that pulled in behind them were alive with flashing lights. One was an ambulance, the other a squad car from a nearby precinct. Paramedics jumped out of the ambulance.

"Perp is down. Get him out first. I'll find the detective." Nick told them.

"You're sure it's clear?" One of them questioned him.

"Detective Benson knows what she's doing. It's clear." His emotions came out in explosive anger. Of course Lewis was down. But he had to see it first. He had to be the one to see his partner first.

The paramedics slung bags over their shoulders and grabbed the stretcher from the back, about to head in as more backup arrived on site.

Nick looked up at them. "Just wait. I'll go first."

"You coming?" Nick turned to Fin.

Fin felt the butterflies in his stomach begin to leap into his bloodstream. He swallowed and shook his head.

"I can't." That was all he had to say. The occupants of the squad car stayed outside upon Nick's request. They stood together as the paramedics awaited Nick at the door.

Nick put a hand on his fellow detective's shoulder and then jumped into motion. He jogged to the door where the paramedics were, taking a look back out to the bay, holding the doorknob in his hand before going in. Movement came from deep within the house, and he held his gun in his hand while he weaved into the hallway and encountered another.

He stopped. "Liv?" The tone he used was full of caution. A voice inside his head screamed at him to leave. It took everything he had to continue forward toward the scene that he knew would break him.

"He's down, Nick. In here." His partner's voice came from a room at the end of the hall.

When Nick stepped into the room, he noticed how his partner, sitting on the floor, flinched violently. She held up her hand to fend off a blow as if it was an instinct. Looking almost ashamed, she let it fall to the floor again, the phone still lying beside her. Quickly, Nick holstered his weapon and took a look at the scene that lay before him. His feet had turned into cement blocks. He couldn't move. Paramedics bumped him as he could do nothing but stare. They hoisted Lewis' still body onto the stretcher after checking his pulse, leaving the room before he was even strapped in.

Just inside the doorframe, Nick was stopped, frozen. What an empty room, an empty room full of distress. There she was, the woman they'd all searched for endlessly - the one whose face he'd seen in the winks of sleep he'd caught the past three nights. She sat on the floor, blood smeared on her arms, chest, and face. When she looked up, he saw the darkness in her eyes. Something about that look snapped him back into motion again. He walked as quickly as he could to her side and crouched down in front of her.

"You alright, Liv?" His voice was soft, just soft enough to keep the shooting pains in her head from getting worse.

Olivia reached out and put her hand around Nick's arm. She had to make sure he was real.

"Yeah." She sighed as heavily as her ribs would allow, realizing he was really there in front of her.

Nick covered her hand with his own resting on his knee before reaching out to push her hair from her face. He examined the gash in her head, the split in her lip, the bruises already beginning to form. It made him so sick he thought he might puke. And at the same time it made him so angry he thought he'd explode.

"God, Liv." He whispered in utter shock.

He couldn't stop the words from falling out. "I'm so sorry."

Olivia used the last of her reserved energy to reach up and take his hand away from her face and shake her head. "I'll live." It was like the breath of the wind, so soft he could hear the very pain in it. Everything she'd endured the previous four days spilled out in just two words. She tried her hardest to offer him a reassuring smile, but it was nothing but a grimace.

Nick could see the pain radiating from her broken body. Every inch of her was covered in perspiration, mingling easily with the blood that still seeped from her fresh wounds. Her arms had patterns of lacerations and burns, her shirt torn and singed. Every injury he saw pushed a pin farther into his heart.

Her eye was already blackening, her wrists bruising badly. No doubt Lewis had restrained her with the handcuffs lying on the ground - handcuffs that she wore on her belt as she protected the city. The pain in her eyes revealed the darkness she'd experienced in four day's time. It killed him that those same eyes he'd looked into almost every day for the last three years had changed. Olivia Benson was different.

"Please - sit." She knew she couldn't stand yet. She needed time to breathe before another assault began - one instigated by the paramedics, the press, the other officers.

It didn't even look like his partner in front of him, but Nick did what she asked. Needing to keep the reality of him close, Olivia moved her hand so he could keep it in his. She couldn't lose her line to the real world while she closed her eyes. The pains running through her wrist and hand were dulled by the comfort of Nick's hand.

She knew what awaited her outside that house, and she wasn't ready to face it just yet. Nick supported the weight of her body, relief filling him, trying to push the sickness from him. She leaned against him heavily. He took every bit of weight she had been carrying alone.

"I thought you weren't going to get here in time." She whispered, unable to let her brain keep suffering from an onslaught of unspoken feelings.

"Neither did I." Nick confessed just as quietly.

Olivia turned her head to look straight into his eyes. "I look like hell."

Even in the oppression of the room, she lifted his spirits a little. Even with the small smile of relief on their hearts, neither one of them could even hint at a smile.

"Never." Nick assured her.

The anxious feeling he held in his heart made him stand up again, taking her hand.

"Come on." He helped her to her feet, where she unsteadily stood for a bit.

He held her around the shoulders as he kept telling himself _"it's over. She's ok._"

Olivia didn't walk, but instead hugged her partner - tighter than she thought she was capable of. Nick wrapped his arms around her, wary of hurting her, but letting her know his comfort as he embraced her. The relief was tangible in the room. Maybe she wasn't ok, but she was alive.

His fingers caught a tear in her shirt, and he touched the torn skin beneath. As he stepped away from the hug, he held her hand in front of them both to steady her, and they walked toward the door. Olivia's heart raced as she heard the noises outside of more vehicles arriving, more voices. She didn't want them seeing her like that, especially other detectives. She was broken; she was in pain. They would know it the moment she stepped into view.

Nick felt the hesitation in Olivia's body as he reached for a blanket hanging over the couch in the living room. Holding it with his free hand, they both reached the door. He was the first to leave, pushing it open and letting her step out into the open where Mother Nature continued her wet onslaught of the island.

Nick stopped and let the blanket drape over Olivia's shoulders. Both of her hands remained extended, too painful to lower as she stared at the NYPD personnel staring back at her. The looks they gave her let her know what they were thinking. She'd worked so long to gain respect for her strength in the department, and that one moment was tearing it down. The help Nick offered with the blanket didn't affect her at all.

When his gaze returned to his partner, he could see her mind racing. "It's over now, Liv." He whispered to her.

Maybe if he said it enough times, she'd believe it. Maybe if he repeated it again, _he'd_ believe it. Her legs moved in sync with Nick's, and they both stopped when Fin came up to them. The knife already in his gut was wrenched sideways as he looked at the woman he'd so long worked with and grown to love like family. She was bloody and bruised, seemingly smaller than she used to be. Her face was so dark with exhaustion and discomfort that Fin thought his breath was never going to return to his lungs.

He hated to give her the news he had to. "He's still alive." The terror in Olivia's eyes was evident to him once the words left Fin's mouth.

Her nerves began to panic again. "I don't know how."

The adrenaline her body ran on was leaving rapidly, and it showed in the shaking that her voice did. That voice didn't belong to her. Fin and Nick didn't recognize it at all. The woman standing before them seemed like a person neither one of them had ever met.

Fin assured her with a nod. "You did what you had to do."

The words didn't even seem to get through to Olivia as she stared down at Fin, her world frozen again.

"Let's get you out of here." Nick gently moved a little to try and get her to follow.

When she didn't, he tried to ignore the shattering his heart did for the hundredth time in a mere five minutes.

He tried harder to get her attention the second time. "Come on, Liv. Let's get you out of here."

As Fin reached for her, Olivia felt her legs move beneath her. Every raindrop on her face reminded her of her existence. Shewas _alive._

Nick led his partner to the second ambulance on the scene; he saw the same look of panic in her face as they stood together.

He whispered in her ear gently, unmoving as he kept his hands on her shoulders. "I'll go with. I'll be right here."

And he would be. She believed him.


	2. Chapter 2

Nick was holding Olivia's hand as the paramedics prodded her skin with needles, trying to get fluids into her deflated veins. She didn't even seem to react to the pain, which scared Nick to the core. Her body seemingly had long since gone numb. One of the men held a flashlight and shined it in her eyes, directing her to look up at him.

"Pupils aren't reacting properly. How many blows to the head did you suffer?"

It angered Nick that someone could act so emotionless toward Olivia. He was asking her if she'd been hit over the head as if he was asking about what she did over the weekend. Her eyes didn't meet Nick's again, but she looked up to answer.

"More than once." She replied softly, a deep swallow following the words that managed to claw their way out of the sand trap within her mouth.

"I think there's a good chance we're dealing with a pretty severe concussion." The second medic answered.

Olivia nodded like she already knew. She did know.

"We're going to just wrap your arms for now - prevent infection." Both paramedics in the vehicle were men, and it made Olivia even more uncomfortable. Nick had to let go of her hand to let them wrap her arm.

"I think - my wrist is broken." She held in a hiss as the wrap extended downward.

"We'll get it X-rayed as soon as we get you to the hospital." The older man answered.

Olivia closed her eyes as they wrapped her arms with soft cloth that felt like sandpaper. The pain brought back the image of Lewis' face in front of hers as he burned her, as he cut her. Nick saw her go back in time. He took her hand and looked up at the paramedic above him to get a look of approval. The man nodded, and Nick leaned into Olivia.

"Liv. Stay here." He said quietly.

Olivia opened her eyes as the wraps on her arms were secured. When the mask for increased oxygen was placed over her head, Olivia's first reaction was to reach up and rip it off. It was restrictive, oppressive.

Nick put his other hand on hers. "You're ok." He repeated in a whisper.

Olivia closed her eyes for the rest of the ride, confident that her partner wouldn't let anything else happen to her.

* * *

Brian jogged into the hospital emergency room after receiving the call. He met Munch and Cragen standing alongside Amanda in the room.

"She's not here yet." The captain put a hand out to hopefully calm Brian's frantic soul. He wore panic in his expression.

As if on cue, the doors of the ambulance entrance opened, two paramedics accompanied by Nick rolling a stretcher into the room. The three people waiting in the room turned, frozen with their mouths open. It was as if time had suddenly shifted to half speed.

Brian saw the woman he loved in slow motion, every second of it physically painful. Her arms, though wrapped, were obviously bleeding. The red seeping through the bandages while her arms lay at her side made him sick. The huge gash on her head sent nails through his brain. The mask on her face made it impossible for her to speak to him, but it looked like she wouldn't have been able to get the energy to speak anyways. Her eye was blackened, her lip split. Brian swallowed hard. The look in her dark eyes scared him. They seemed to be begging him to do something.

Using what she had left, Olivia lifted her hand only a little. Brian knew what it meant. He was at her side, her hand in his as she stared up at him. Nick held her other hand as they moved the stretcher beyond the doors of the waiting room. When the paramedics stopped in a large room, unstrapping Olivia. Nick let go of her hand after squeezing it gently.

"You're going to be ok." He whispered, forcing a small smile. Then he stood up straight, putting a supportive hand on Brian's shoulder. The two men had butted heads before, but they had to come together again for a woman that they both cared for deeply.

Brian thanked the detective silently, and Nick left the room. The paramedics left the room after announcing the doctor and nurses would be in as soon as they could. The hospital was jammed, so busy that even in her condition, the paramedics had to get back on the roads without leaving a doctor.

Olivia weakly lifted the oxygen mask off of her face.

"I'm glad you're here." She couldn't hardly whisper. Her body was empty: no food or water for days, the only thing going into her body having been drugs and alcohol.

Brian couldn't even smile. He tried, but he couldn't. When Olivia saw the tear slip from his eyes, her heart broke. He shook his head.

"I'm so sorry." His voice broke more than once. Olivia felt her own tear sliding down the side of her face into her hairline as she lay on her back.

She'd never felt what she was feeling then. She had lived, and now she got another chance to look into the face of the person that had been there for her for all the years she needed him. Lewis had told her she'd never make it out alive, but she had.

Olivia let the emotions go at last, closing her eyes and feeling tear after tear roll down her face. Brian just held her hand, unable to wrap her in the hug he wished he could offer. Olivia didn't say anything else. She opened her swimming eyes and looked at the man she thought she'd never see again. He hadn't run away when the going got tough.

Brian let the next tear fall from his eye as he leaned down to her and gave her a soft kiss. Olivia felt comfort in his kiss, unlike the revulsion she'd experienced with Lewis. Despite the split in her lip, she kissed him back. Her lips trembled against him. When he leaned up a little ways from her face, Brian tenderly put the oxygen mask back over her mouth and nose. She didn't protest, but instead spoke again.

"Don't leave me." Her weak voice came to his ears again.

"I won't." He replied quietly. He added the phrase that he knew he meant. "I promise."

* * *

Nick arrived back in the waiting room where Fin now joined the three other members of the team. They turned to look at him with agonizingly curious faces, craving information.

"Is she ok?" Amanda was exasperated. The brief glimpse she'd had of Olivia had been enough to scare her, and not enough to convince her that she was ok.

Nick didn't answer right away. "She will be." He thought it the safest way to reply.

"Her wrist is broken - she has a lot of -" he stopped, his voice wavering too much for him to continue. He didn't know how to say it. Olivia's body was a crime scene, a surface littered with burns and cuts.

"- he burned her. He used a knife too." Nick changed the sentence so that it was possible for him to form words.

"And she killed Lewis?" Cragen jumped in.

Fin and Nick both pictured the pulp of a man that had been rolled out of the house.

"She beat the hell out of him - but he was alive when they took him to Bellevue." Fin took over speaking, seeing what a toll it took on Nick.

Munch swallowed in an attempt to settle the burning in his chest. It felt like someone had reached in and tore at his heart. "So what now?" He spoke up.

Captain Cragen took a deep breath. "We wait."

* * *

Brian stayed by Olivia's side while the doctor and nurses cleaned the burns and cuts on her arms and face. He held her hand as nurse took her blood, Olivia propped up on the table with a bandage on her head. And though broke his heart, he stayed by her side when she experienced what she had to for standard procedure.

The rape kit alone took two hours, two grueling, destructive hours. Brian could tell by the grimaces and awful looks she was trying to hide that it hurt her physically and mentally more than she could say. He didn't even know if Lewis had gone that far, and he wasn't going to ask. Olivia would tell him when she wanted him to know.

The tough hours wound down into the dark night. The only time in four hours that Brian let go of Olivia's hand was when she had to be X-rayed for broken ribs and her wrist. He watched, floating on a bubble of numbed pain. His mind had acted on its own, shutting down everything in him to feel nothing. It helped, but would crumble eventually. He was sure that Olivia's body had done the same thing.

The examination finished with a wrap placed around her torso to keep her cracked ribs in place. Her arm was set in a removable cast to hold her wrist still. The burns and cuts in her arms were neatly bandaged with tiny, individual white bandages to hold them together to heal. The deeper ones were stitched up and bandaged as well.

Olivia was sitting up on the table as Brian stood next to her again. She gave him a look of exhaustion and desperation. Those eyes were the ones he'd looked into every day for the past two years, but something in them had changed. Of course they had changed. She'd been subjected to the worst kind of pain there was - degradation.

Olivia, feeling so violated, did not speak unless asked to answer the doctor's questions. There was nothing she wouldn't do to get herself out from under the watchful eye of people who didn't even know her. Anything except go back to that house, that man.

"Olivia." Brian squeezed her hand when he saw she wasn't listening to the doctor as she spoke to the both of them.

"Sorry." She mumbled.

The doctor shook her head. "That's alright." She glanced at her clipboard. "With your fractured ribs and concussion, we'd like to keep you overnight, just to be safe."

Olivia felt her heart fall farther into the abyss of her broken body. "Ok." She replied, not loud enough to be called a whisper.

"I'll have one of the nurses take you upstairs."

Brian sensed Olivia's discomfort. "No. I can do it." He jumped in.

The doctor paused a moment, but nodded. "I'll bring in a wheelchair." She disappeared, and then came back in with the item she'd promised.

"To room 340. Elevators are just around the corner." She put a hand on Olivia's shoulder silently before leaving without another word.

Brian put an arm around Olivia as he helped her down from the table and into the chair.

"Thank you." She was still so quiet.

He wheeled her into the elevator, neither of them saying anything. Their ride up to the third floor was silent. Olivia's body throbbed from the prodding she'd been through while images flashed in her mind. She wouldn't be sleeping at all.

Brian watched her from above her, seeing only her head and the wounds on her arms that tortured him. He wished it could be him. He wished he could take that agony away from her.

Olivia held in her lap the bag of fluids that fed into her system as the elevator doors opened and Brian took her down the hall toward where her room was. The room was as dreary as any hospital room. Brian stopped and took a moment to look up and around him.

Olivia got out of the chair herself.

"Whoa - hey let me help."

She didn't accept his hand of assistance, but instead she hugged him as tightly as she could with one arm. Brian was surprised at first, but wrapped his arms around her, wary of hurting her. Olivia couldn't cry anymore, but if she had been able to, she would have.

"I'm going to be ok." She whispered in his ear. And Brian believed her.

He nodded gently against her as her cheek rested on his. "I know." Another tear of his fell onto her shoulder. "I'm just glad you're still here."

she paused to swallow before saying the words she thought she might never get to say. Her whisper was smooth. "I love you."

And as Brian held her, he too realized that he still had her to love, to hold. "I love you too, Liv."


End file.
